I'm a young man in a lazy out of shape older man's body. Only 33 and getting winded walking up the stairs or not having the energy to mow the lawn sucks. So... change time! I've cut nicotine (cigarettes was my choice of delivery system) out completely about 3 months ago which helped a lot. I've stopped drinking 5 - 15 cans of Coke a day recently and working on getting back to my old 1/2 - 1 gallon of water a day with a cup or two of coffee in the mornin to substitute for the loss of caffiene. Other then right side head pounding and grumpiness, I'm doing good so far from the loss of mega amounts of daily sugar and caffiene into my system.

Previous Experience: Age 18, in the military, learned an intense love for running and overall muscle endurance in just about every area. Age 21, started getting into weight lifting, 3Xwk with something of a push/pull routine. Running reached it's peak here to where I just ran in whatever to wherever I was going, including in full uniform from barracks to work (1.5 miles) until I shattered my fibula, docs put a metal plate, began to experience severe shin splints or something = big decline in running. Age 23, out of military fitness declining so increased weight lifting and found myself in a 6 day work 1 day rest routine where I would do...

It seemed to work out pretty well. I began to get some serious definition in my muscles, still with mega lower leg pain when I attempted to run. I am also a firm believer in the benefits from dumbbells are greater than barbells. I dunno, it's just my thought that exercising with proper form and slow movement with dumbbells gives the supporting muscles more strength which may decrease the possibility for lifting injuries

Got married & had kids from about 8 years ago. Only 4 hours of broken sleep a day for about 2 years with the kids just being born and me on night shift to watch kids in the morning because no money for day care ran me into a pretty sedentary life. It just stayed that way up until about 3 months ago when I stopped smoking.

I've started running/jogging a very little bit, off and on the past two weeks (maybe 1/4 mile to work) with no serious problems which I am very excited about. Hopefully that will hold up and I can begin to increase the length and frequency that I do run. The ultimate goal would be to run a marathon... but I'm not even sure that is possible with my leg.

I might be going into information overload so far from reading all the goodies on this site. I'll have to re-read a lot of it. I've picked up some good information though. Almost to make me believe that my exercise routine might be a little off. I see a lot of proponents to compound lifts as opposed to breaking muscle groups up across the week and that 5X5 might be better than 10X3.

Either way, I'm just going to start what I know tonight and put it in my logs while I educate myself some more through the literature in this site. Hopefully I'll get some friendly advice in what I am doing in this thread too?

Thanks for listening/reading for all of you that stuck in there and read my rather long winded introduction.

I started the Jog-Walk program that is referenced on ExRx (exrx net/Aerobic/JogWalkProgram.html) this morning. It seems like it will gradually get my lower legs back into shape with minimal injury so I have my fingers crossed.

As far as weight training is concerned, I've decided to stick with a more convetional program but there are so many on this site to choose from, lol. I've narrowed it down to some sort of 5X5 program, Rippetoe's Starting Strength, or the Crossfit thing found on one of the stickies. Having only a set of power blocks I think they are called (the adjustable dumbbells) an adjustable bench and a few plates to go with my arm bar I don't think that I can do the Crossfit thing yet which seems like a little bit of a bummer. So, I am leaning towards Rippetoe's since I've never learned the big compound lifts but again, have a lack of barbell although I see some alternate exercises with dumbbells in the exrx directory. Shouldn't it be ok to use the alternatives? Can I use my arm bar on the power cleans with minimal weight to get my form down until I am able to get a real barbell and some extra weight or does the arm bar just not provide room for the widened grip? Either way, I am going to try the exercises tonight and see how it feels.

Eating is a whole different animal... my wife and I own and operate a from scratch bakery... so it's a little difficult to stay away from the homemade breads, cookies, pies, etc. I am the early morning person so I open up shop and it's pretty much mandatory for me to taste the product before I put it out on the shelves. It's just one bite of whatever I'm putting out, but one bite of about 6 cookies each, 2-3 muffins, plus any specials we have that day, chocolates, sugar free counterparts, doughnuts, etc. starts me off in the wrong direction early in the day. For instance, yesterday, it was about 5 different cookies plus a blueberry muffin to taste along with a new cookie (peanut butter nobake) to taste before putting it out along with 1 cup of coffee and french toast made with homemade bread & some syrup. Lunch was from scratch pizza dough with pepperoni & bacon, & dinner was some hamburger helper thing at home. I guess the one good thing I can say is that most of my meals are from scratch and I personally know that there aren't any artifical stuff in it. lol I am the one that cooks dinner though while the wife closes shop for the night, so I could go a little better there. I dunno, that's going to be a tough one.

Yeah, I'm loving my rack. It just gets me revvd up for a workout, I just gotta go stand in it to get motivated to finish the workout, lol. All of my exercises are being done outside of the rack at the moment. Once I got comfortable with the movement of the squat, I wasn't worried much anymore of having to have a spotter/rack. I will however move my exercises inside of the rack when I feel that the weight is too heavy for me to complete the required reps. Yeah, 30 pounds is what Rip has prescribed. His book says that 30 pounds a week can usually last for three weeks, then the weight increases will need to be lowered. As far as the hole height on the rack, I guess I got lucky, they are all in a pretty decent spot. Yeah, that is one thing I am definately going to need to fix, my eating habits. I will just have to hurry when I get home from work to get my workout in first, then cook & eat dinner. I'm not the biggest fan anymore of eating on a full stomach, hehe.

From that article that Mark posted: "If you’re 3 months into the program at 30% bodyfat, your waistline has not gone down 4 inches and your squat is not up 175 pounds, YNDTP."

That should be your goal. Take a longer view of it. Get comfortable with the movement first, then start putting the weight up.

_________________Stu Ward_________________Let thy food be thy medicine, and thy medicine be thy food.~HippocratesStrength is the adaptation that leads to all other adaptations that you really care about - Charles Staley_________________Thanks TimD

So, gonna start the weight training again tonight. I'm just so frustrated that I would get a back problem right after getting started. I still have issues just bending over, and in fact, I have residual pain right now from just bending over to put new trash bags in the trash cans but I had a little non-scientific expirament yesterday night. I tried my best to keep my back in an extended (correct term?) position and did a squat with just the bar, no pain. I'm sure if I went out of the position of where my back was our of extension, I would experience a great deal of pain, but not gonna intentionally try that. lolWith opening a new business and not even out of my first year of being open yet, I haven't the monies to pay for insurance, so a doc is out of the question. Although, I might be able to get in to see a chiropractor soon as he is a friend of the families. So, putting all the liability crap aside, what do ya'll think? Also, any accessory exercises I can do to help the lower back, or would doing accessories plus the main program lifts cause too much stress?

I'm just so irritated that I'm stalled here so early in the program. With no work over the past two weeks, I'm catching myself slipping back into the comfortable yet horribly unhealthy patterns I was in previously.

I still have issues just bending over, and in fact, I have residual pain right now from just bending over to put new trash bags in the trash cans but I had a little non-scientific expirament yesterday night. I tried my best to keep my back in an extended (correct term?) position and did a squat with just the bar, no pain. I'm sure if I went out of the position of where my back was our of extension, I would experience a great deal of pain, but not gonna intentionally try that. lol

Yeah, I sort of confirmed this a few minutes ago. I was carrying around and mounting our 60 qt. stainless steel mixing bowl with about 20 loaves worth of white bread dough and was in quite a bit of pain. As soon as I extended my back, it went away immediately. I think I'm definately going to give it a go tonight with the weights. My only concern is accidentally slipping out of extension during a move with my heavy work set and really doing some damage. Might have to be very careful.

One thing that I noticed once I started deadlifting is that my everyday posture for lifting improved. Like Doc said, keep practicing the movement with concious attention to form.

_________________Stu Ward_________________Let thy food be thy medicine, and thy medicine be thy food.~HippocratesStrength is the adaptation that leads to all other adaptations that you really care about - Charles Staley_________________Thanks TimD

I've always wanted to be able to do a good bit of chin/pull ups ever since that dreadfull day when I couldn't even knock just one out in like 3rd or 4th grade. *sigh*From reading SS, it thinks chins/pulls are good assistance exercises and employs mostly the lats and biceps when doing chins. What workout days should I do these on? Does it really matter? Or, since it helps my press and bench press mostly, would it be better to do them on press days since bench press is heavier or bench press days since it uses the pecs more then it does the shoulders? I dunno, am I overthinking or just being silly? lol Just wanna learn to do them at least decently well.

JMOSS, I really don't think it matters that much, possibly bordering on overthinking. However, with that said, personally, IMHO only, I prefer to pair up antagonist movements. In this case, you would be pairing vertical push with vertical pull. In a similar scenario, if you decided to use a type of row as assistance, I'd pair it with Bench Press, for the same reasons, horizontal.Tim

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